"Peers and scientists including Professor Stephen Hawking are once again pushing for an official pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing. Turing's death from cyanide poisoning in 1954 was ruled a suicide, coming after his conviction for gross indecency at a time when homosexuality was illegal." The fact that he still hasn't been pardoned is an utter disgrace.

Children and teenagers still get bullied at school for being gay and are driven to suicide.

I would like for those children and teenagers to go to history class and learn about how society fought for the rights of a gay person even though he's dead, and how being gay is not a barrier to being loved and acts of heroism.

What I would not like for those children to learn in history is that only a few people in society tried to do anything, even if it was just symbolic. That society couldn't even be bothered to pressure their own government into making a symbolic gesture.

And that's exactly what I am arguing for, don't you understand? I would want children to learn that even if the government doesn't care the people themselves do instead of that the government cared about one, famous one and the rest were then forgotten. The fact is that giving Turing a pardon would steal the thunder away from the rest and given how short a public memory is people wouldn't anymore have the motivation for them; "you already got your pardon!"

Any message that the government says is simply too easy to forget or ignore, you need peers to make a long-lasting impression. Appeal to people themselves and you'll get a better result than you could ever get with a formal apology from a faceless government.

And that's exactly what I am arguing for, don't you understand? I would want children to learn that even if the government doesn't care the people themselves do instead of that the government cared about one, famous one and the rest were then forgotten.

But this isn't the government coming out with this plan apropos of nothing. It is the people pressuring the government, a government which had knocked back the plan before.

We need to get this fact straight.

The fact is that giving Turing a pardon would steal the thunder away from the rest

No, that is not a fact. Not a fact at all.

and given how short a public memory is people wouldn't anymore have the motivation for them; "you already got your pardon!"

And the same would happen if it happened your way:

"Well, they couldn't even give Turing a pardon. What's the point in doing anything further?"

We can all come up with fantasy scenarios and they prove exactly nothing.

Any message that the government says is simply too easy to forget or ignore, you need peers to make a long-lasting impression. Appeal to people themselves and you'll get a better result than you could ever get with a formal apology from a faceless government.

I don't buy into this "everything the government does is always bad" argument. I have no time for libertarian scaremongering.